


Misquoting Shakespeare

by nagapdragon



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Female Dean Winchester, Female Sam Winchester, Genderswap, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagapdragon/pseuds/nagapdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samantha and Deanna Winchester live in a hunter's commune called Messina, and after Michael and Lucifer's reconciliation the angels come to visit. Pranks, flirting, and horribly paraphrased Shakespeare ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I, Scene I

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm almost always available to chat about this either here or at my Tumblr (I'm nagapdragon there, too) and I'd love to hear what you think. Hope you enjoy!

Eyeliner even? Check.

No blood on her favorite jeans? Check.

Nasty-ass industrial strength hairspray washed out of her hair? Check. That stuff sticks around like a siren in a strip bar, but or some reason the local beat cops never believe she’s FBI unless she has a metric fuck-ton of that stuff keeping every last strand of hair in a tight bun. Seriously, Sammy never has that problem, but something about blonde makes them all call bull unless she reeks of enough hairspray to make even the Georgia humidity say nah, not worth the effort. 

Beat-up pleather creaks as she slides into the booth, winking at the bartender across the room before Sammy joins her. The bartender’s just her type- dark and handsome, a little bit dangerous but not quite like Sammy likes ‘em. Deanna likes someone who won’t break the first time life goes belly-up, but she’s a sucker for dark hair, pale eyes, and a little bit of stubble, for self-assured confidence and a smile that says he knows a thing or two. 

Well, except for Cas. The confused and awkward routine on top of badass warrior angel presses all her buttons too, but the angel didn’t so much as look at her before they went off on themost recent Crusade, so Deanna’s moving on. 

Sort of. 

Flirting with someone who isn’t like a cockier and far less all-powerful Angel of the Lord version of Cas isn’t helping. 

Well, not that Sammy will let her flirt a little bit. She gets a bit of a stick up her ass when they have a rate of about a death a week and they’ve had four in the past three weeks. Sure enough, Sammy slides in to the bench on the other side, opening her laptop and typing furiously.

“Well, the wounds are all humanly possible, so that’s something, right?”

“No,” Sammy complains. “That limits us to nearly everything we hunt. Congratulations, it isn’t a wendigo, which means a whole lot of absolutely nothing.”

“Stressing much? It’s the rabbit food, isn’t it? Girl needs some good red meat.” Deanna waves the waitress over, ordering two of their burger specials with a beer for her and a cup of black coffee for Sam.

“It’s the freaky murders that I’m worried about.” Sammy pulls her hair over one shoulder, braiding it efficiently and pinning her braid out of the way. Ellen keeps threatening to cut Sammy’s hair off the next time she gets gum or blood or ectoplasm stuck in it, but Sammy insists that her Rapunzel braid is somehow not a liability. 

“Dude, if you get this stressed about freaky murders we are in the wrong profession.” Deanna combs her fingers through her hair, checking for any of that leftover hairspray making it stick together in weird clumpy strands. Seriously unattractive, especially when the way her hair waves always shouts out _hey, look at this strand in particular!_  

“There’s freaky, and then there’s freaky but I have no idea what we’re looking for.”

“Eat your burger and we’ll call Bobby.”

“I can do this on my own.”

Aaaand, there it is, the famed Samantha Winchester stubbornness. Drove Dad insane, until he walked out on them when Deanna started high school. Bobby put them through school, made them breakfast every morning and put the same effort into Sammy’s Algebra homework as into running Hunter Central out of his kitchen. 

“Fine, do your worst. I’m going to eat my burger, steal your fries, and then call Bobby.” Deanna slides her jacket back off her shoulders, totally not throwing her chest out a little and thankful that she changed into a nice push-up bra instead of her usual sports bra. If Sammy’s gonna take forever, she’s gonna have a little fun.

Unfortunately, Sammy chooses now to eat fast, so she doesn’t get much further than appreciating the pull of his tee across his pecs and the way his ass looks in those worn jeans when he goes to get stock. 

“Done staring?”

“What can I say? He’s hot.” Deanna adds a little sway to her step as they leave, but doesn’t look back. That was rule number one, way back then. You never look back because back is a swathe of destruction and ruin where they didn’t get there fast enough or fix the problem soon enough. Makes for good exits, too, and let it never be said that Deanna doesn’t have a sense of the theatrical. 

“He’s a small-town bartender, Deanna. Also known as _boring_.”

“But hot,” Deanna offers.

“If you like that type.”

“Oh, I forgot, you like the things that try to kill us.”

“You’re a jerk. It was my high school prom!”

“In which you slept with the prom king- who was a walking cliche, I mean, captain of the football team and not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, that one- and brought him home to Messina. In the morning, it turned out good ol’ John or Jacob or whatever his name was had been replaced by a skin changer two weeks ago and nobody noticed.”

Sammy slams the Impala’s door a little harder than necessary as she gets in. “We did wonder why he suddenly had a personality.”

Deanna rolls her eyes. “Rule number one, little sis? Stay away from the captain of the football team.”

“I thought rule number one was we don’t talk about Mom.”

“Those are the rules to avoid me putting Nair in your shampoo, as not to be confused with the rules to dating.”

“Shut up and call Bobby.”

“You should get that on a T-shirt.” Deanna dials without looking, pulling out of the parking lot one-handed. She heads for the edges of town, skirting around the outer roads to find some motel that lets Bobby be a cheapskate and yet won’t make Ellen kill them all. She started imposing standards when Jo and Deanna hunted together, during those years Sammy was finishing high school and then her undergrad.

“If you girls are in trouble again, you’ll be doing your own laundry for the rest of forever and no, bloodstains are not an excuse to throw out a shirt.” There’s banging in the background that sounds like someone cooking as Ellen paces. She always walks around while she talks unless she’s angry, at which point she goes really still and makes them so utterly humiliated that they disappointed her.

“We’re fine, Ellen, just having a little trouble figuring out what we’re up against.”

“Bobby!” she shouts away from the receiver. “Just one second, girls. We just had an angel messenger arrive and you know how he hates being reminded he’s actually in charge of this place.”

“Alright. Good news, I hope.”

“Give me that,” Bobby grumps, and Deanna can almost imagine him snatching the receiver away as if Ellen hadn’t been holding it out. “Where are you girls today?”

“Middle of nowhere… Wisconsin, I think.”

“Alright, take your angel warding off, I’m sending someone to fetch you.”

“What?”

Sammy pulls her necklace off immediately- because of the Crusade, their angel warding isn’t tattooed on them like their anti-demon warding- and Deanna follows after an instant. A slim angel named Rachael, the one currently on healing rotation at Messina, appears in the Impala’s backseat a moment later.

“Deanna Winchester, Samantha Winchester. I have come to return you to Messina.”

“Why?” Deanna pulls over so they don’t hit the middle of Messina at twenty miles an hour. “We just left, they shouldn’t need us home for another few weeks.”

Rachael tips her head sideways and meets Deanna’s eyes in the rearview mirror, reaching forwards to lay a hand on their shoulders. She barely touches them before the tingle of Grace runs along them, muted through layers of cotton and leather but enough to make Deanna jump anyways.

“They return. Michael returns.”

 

***

 

Messina is the type of place Deanna never expected to live. 

An old mansion on a hill, Messina is a strange combination of old-world luxury and hick chic. The grounds are circled by a low wall with a built-in salt line, protection from ghosts of the things they kill. The stables were converted to Bobby’s workspace and that’s where Rachael zaps them- Deanna fought hard for a spot to park Baby inside the garage and her spot is downright sacred. 

“Who is Bobby sending in our place?” Sammy asks her before the angel flashes away again. 

“I am to find Garth and whoever hechooses to be his hunting partner and take them in your place.”

Yeah, makes sense. Garth’s unconventional, but his methods work in a weird way. Samantha hates to work with him, says his chatter gets on her nerves, but Deanna thinks he’s a riot. Except that when he takes a turn driving, it’s country all the way. Garth’s got no appreciation for the good stuff. 

They hurry out to the main house, ditching their shoes in the foyer and hanging their coats in the labelled cubbies. Jo and Deanna got Ellen a labelmaker a few years back and it’s been alternately brilliant and terrible. Here in the foyer, they have an armory cage on one side and their cubbies on the other, five of them labelled for the six full-time residents and three spares for guests. At the end there’s a laundry hamper- _Blood, mud, and goo: Track them through my house and I’ll kill you_. 

Deanna and Jo keep stealing the labelmaker to put _If you’re a poet and you know it, put your laundry here_ , but it looks like Ellen’s removed the most recent one. 

“Bobby,” she calls, wandering into the kitchen to nab a bottle out of the fridge and toss another one behind her to Sammy. There’s a fresh batch of cookies cooling on the counter and Deanna twists one loose from the cookie sheet, getting chocolate all over her hands, which means the cookies are just right.

“Study,” comes the muffled shout from across the house, almost immediately followed by Rufus’ equally muffled “Watch the volume!”

Deanna and Sammy exchange a look, padding across tile floors to the other side of the house. Those were one of the first things Ellen made them change when they bought Messina for a hunter’s compound- tile’s a lot easier to get all the detritus of hunting off of. Especially the blood and guts part, but the side dish of drunken revelry doesn’t hurt. Their home is all tile and the best anti-stain paint money could buy and furniture that is surprisingly sturdy, framed report cards and monster wards and a whole lot of weapons on the walls. Bobby’s study is the center of Hunter HQ, full of books on shelves and books stacked on the floor and active missions tacked to any surface he can poke a hole in. 

And currently, a young angel sitting in the guest chair across from Bobby. 

“Samandriel, Samantha and Deanna. Sam and Deanna, Samandriel. Now that we’re all cozy and shit, maybe he can be bothered to tell me more than ‘the Angels are coming’. Thanks, I got that much from Rachael two days ago.”

“The Archangel Michael comes this night to Messina,” Samandriel intones, adjusting the silly hat of his vessel. “He is very near, I am honored to carry his news ahead of the Host.”

“How many angels have you lost?”

“Very few, Robert Singer, and none of any power.”

“Good. And Castiel?”

Deanna’s head snaps to Bobby in surprise. Yeah, Cas has helped them out a bunch before the Crusade called him back to the Host, but he mostly helped Deanna and Sammy. Bobby barely saw him and when he did, it was more as a demanding angel than as, well, Cas. 

“The Prince of Heaven has bestowed much honor on the seraph Castiel, as he has acquitted himself well in the battle against the forces of Hell. He has done beyond the promise of his status, facing nigh on as many demons as the Archangels themselves. Castiel has done his duties, Hunter, beyond what I might express.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“He has heard your prayers for our success and is quite overjoyed to be returning to Messina after so long a campaign.”

Sammy glances over at Samandriel and Deanna pokes her in the ribs- she knows that face and very little good ever comes from it. Sammy elbows her back and speaks up anyways. 

“And the Trickster, is he returning?”

“I know of no Trickster, my lady, there is no angel by that moniker.”

“Don’t be coy with your words, Sammy.”

Deanna sighs. “She means Gabriel, you know, the Archangel Gabriel?”

“The Archangel Gabriel has returned from the Crusade and he hath returned permanently to his brother’s side. There is much rejoicing in Heaven.” Samandriel beams as if to show them exactly how much rejoicing there is in Heaven, tilting his head to the side in the same way Cas used to before they taught him it was weird. Angels, not exactly masters of human expression.

“Has he now. Last time he was here-“

“Sammy, don’t get into it now.”

“Deanna, you ruin all my fun.”

“I don’t understand. The Archangel Gabriel is one of Heaven’s finest, lady.”

“And one of Heaven’s finest to a lady, but what is he to a lord?”

Deanna and Bobby groan and Sammy manages to keep a straight face for a full ten seconds. Samandriel tilts his head the other way to show confusion, taking a moment before his brow furrows. New vessel, then, still trying to figure out how it all works. Makes her want to take the baby angel- he seems so much younger than Cas without the serious demeanor- to an obstacle course to watch him half-stumble, half-fly through it. 

“Sammy, don’t misquote Shakespeare at the angels. They don’t get the reference.”

“The Archangel is stuffed with all manner of honorable virtues, as our Father intended for his favored children. You do him no kindness to speak thusly.”

Sammy gives the _see?_ shrug before turning back to the angel. “It is so, indeed, he is no less than a stuffed man but for the stuffing, well, we are all mortal.”

Samandriel blinks a few times before resuming the thousand yard stare. “Angels are immortal, Samantha Winchester. I do not understand.”

“Ignore her,” Bobby says. “She’s just trying to make fun of Gabriel, which would be a whole lot less confusing if he were actually here. Maybe.” Probably not, in Deanna’s opinion, but she’s not exactly getting in the middle of this. She spends most of her days with Sammy and she’s a hair puller- never gets in trouble for it, not even when Bobby catches her at it. Sucks to be the older sibling sometimes. Or all the time. 

They weren’t spoiled much- _at all_ \- as children, not ’til Bobby got them, but by then Deanna was already an angry teenager. Bobby had a lot more success spoiling nine-year-old Samantha Rae than thirteen-year-old Deanna Beth, especially when any attempt to try and use her full name to be all serious and parent-y just made her sulk for weeks. Sammy was the easy teenager, Bobby says, all wrapped up in school and hunting lore instead of boys and cars and music that’s apparently too loud for any civilized household.

“I’d win,” Sammy says, dropping the prose. “He’s too giggly by half. Who is his current best buddy? He has a new one every month.”

“I do not believe that is the proper use of the human colloquialism ‘best buddy’.”

“Simple,” Sammy says, waving a quelling hand at Samandriel. “He wears his faith but as the fashion of his pornos- it ever changes with the next _Casa Erotica_.”

Dead silence. Nobody so much as moves and apparently Samandriel gets the memo because the angel even stops breathing. Bobby stares at Sammy with the horrified look of denial that his baby girl just said that while Rufus pops his head in, takes a glance around, and back the hell out. Deanna wishes she could join him. 

“Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the Devil?” Sammy grins, pleased with herself to have managed to work that one in. It seems to jolt Samandriel back into action, something he recognizes even if he doesn’t get the joke. Sammy turns to Deanna, grinning, and she frowns at her little sister in return. 

“The Archangel is most in the company of the Seraph Castiel.”

Sammy pats Deanna on the shoulder. “Sucks for you, D.”

Rufus pokes his head back in. “You done with the ‘bout to bite Sam’s head off business yet? There’s a whole bunch of angels on the lawn.”

 

***

 

Ah, the sweet smell of chicken wings and spilt beer gone stale. Gabriel takes another whiff, catching the divine scent of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. It’s not like he can’t make his own with just a thought, but there’s something about somebody else going to the trouble of making them from scratch, no sunlight-and-lemon tang of Grace tainting them. 

Gabriel stretches his wings lazily, earning him a shout from Balthazar as he narrowly misses the younger angel. He hasn’t had them out quite this much in decades- millennia, really, but who’s counting? There are some advantages to being back in the Host, you know, after the whole Michael nearly blowing up half of Heaven with the lecture he gave Gabriel for leaving in the first place. 

Turns out that ‘I’ve been so worried about you, I thought you were dead’ is nice the first time he hears it from the most powerful angel in Creation, but not when he hears it for the seven hundredth with the full force of Michael’s fiery Grace behind it. His primaries were singed for _days_. 

“Messina,” he muses aloud. “Coming home to your True Vessel, Mikey?”

Cassie gives them both a disgruntled look, smoothing it from his features before Michael turns to him. They all tuck their wings away before approaching the house- the humans wouldn’t be able to see them anyways, but no sense in knocking things off shelves if they don’t have to. Might set a bad precedent with the hunters and they really don’t need a war with the hunters, not after just squaring things with Lucy. Sort of. 

Bobby walks out, flanked by Deanna and the Samsquatch, with a bunch of other people he mostly ignores except to wave to Samandriel. He’s barely more than a fledgling, hence the messenger duties, but unfortunately he’s one of Mikey’s and therefore boring. Mikey dismisses him with a wave to rejoin the rest of the Host in Heaven doing repairs and all the boring stuff Gabriel will run away again if Mikey tries to assign him to. 

“We arrive victorious, Robert Singer,” Michael opens with and seriously, Gabriel gets why the fledglings these days are so exquisitely boring, growing up in Heaven with only Mikey and Rafy for company. It’s thanks to Lucy that Gabriel turned out as well-rounded and fascinating as he is, though he’ll give credit to Mikey for a good dose of sanity that Lucy seems to be allergic to. 

“Bobby. It’s Bobby, Michael, and you know that.”

“Bobby,” Mikey tries, rolling the syllables across his tongue as if it pains him. “We come to stay, to rest and to… become re-acquainted with the Hand of the Lord on Earth in our absence.”

“We come in peace,” Gabriel mocks, deepening his voice. 

“The Hand of the… you mean hunters, right?”

“Indeed, as you are the instrument through which my Father’s will has been done with my brothers _in absentia_. It would be remiss to neglect the talents your kind have honed in finding evil, despite your regrettable limitations in exterminating it.” Mikey delivers that like a compliment and all the hunters stare at him like little fishys. Goldfish, vacant and confused, except for Samsquatch, who is definitely one of those fighter fish that eats its own kind, but equally confused. 

And then everyone turns to him and oops, did he say that aloud?

“I wonder that you will still be talking, Gabriel, nobody marks you.”

Gabriel’s head shoots up and he grins. A glance around confirms that none of his boring siblings get it except for maybe Balthy, who raises a judgmental eyebrow.

_Your move, brother,_ Balthy tells him over Angel Radio. 

“My dear Lady Disdain!” he exclaims. “Are you yet living?”

“Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as the Archangel Gabriel? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.”

“I don’t understand what they find so funny,” Cassie comments to Balthy. 

“It’s bloody Shakespeare in the Park,” he replies, which really doesn’t help the poor seraph but Cassie really needs to get a clue about culture beyond AC/DC and the various types of pie and the Excel spreadsheet Sammy made him for Deanna’s relative preferences.

“Courtesy’s a Benedict Arnold, isn’t she?” he goes off-script because Mikey might be a tad bit upset if they quote the rest of the play before he can so much as send most of the Host away and properly clean and re-bless his blade after using it to shed Lucy’s blood. Mikey’s a stickler for those things, even if the rest of them just give it a round of Grace and sheathe their blade. 

Besides, he doesn’t have a hard heart. He loves the world, just not enough to bond with anyone. It’s not like that’s an issue- Mikey and Lucy are both older than he is and neither of them have bonded, so he can blame them for setting a bad precedent. It’s not his fault Rafy went and got himself bonded to an equally responsible angel and they’re happily- well, as happily as Rafy can be since Gabriel’s not sure he really has that much of a range of emotions- sort-of happily making little fledglings since Gabriel’s return meant he got to go back to his original duties at a healer. 

And that made Michael get all stupid and broody and ‘we have to set a good precedent for our brothers, Gabriel’ and ‘with the Crusade over we have to repopulate Heaven, Gabriel’ and nobody seems to be pushing Lucy to do the same. Who thought Prince of Hell was more of an excuse than ‘hey, Dad, I ran off and became a Pagan, here’s hoping you don’t mind since I’m sort of one of the only things you created before well… Creation’. 

Sammy gives him the disappointed eyes.

Gabriel sighs. “It is certain that I am loved of all,” he waggles his eyebrows because he can’t resist, “only you excepted. And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a deathly fear of what Mikey might do to me for, truly, I love all too much.”

Lucy stifles a snort, earning both of them a glare from Mikey that would have made lesser angels quake in their wings.

“A dear happiness to women, they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that.” Sammy opens her mouth to continue, ignoring the angels looking at each other in confusion and that Bobby and Deanna both sat down in the grass. Cassie, of course, only has eyes for Deanna, staring at her quiet conversation with Bobby with an intensity usually reserved for the more artistic of pornos, the ones that think all dialogue can be replaced with _chiaroscuro_ lighting and not a lot of blinking.

“Why is she thanking Father?” one of the little ones behind him asks. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” Lucy hisses. “Samantha is no reptile. She is my True Vessel, I would know.”

Gabriel bites back a giggle.

“Are you quite finished, Gabriel?” Michael asks. “Ro… Bobby Singer, we request hospitality under your roof for me and mine.” Mikey snaps and the barely not-fledglings, those who fell out of favor with him, and basically half the current members of the Host return to Heaven in a whoosh of wings. 

“Whatever. You’re welcome here, even _him_.” Bobby points and absolutely nobody looks to see who he’s talking about. “But only because he’s here and not in chains, which had better mean you two reconciled or some shit and not some freaky angel jail.”

“Thanks,” Lucy says, putting as much dry sarcasm as he can muster behind the word. 

Gabriel stays back when everyone else follows the hunters into the house, earning a suspicious look from Lucy and a warning one to behave from Mikey. Cassie drops away from Balthy’s side- he really needs a better nickname for Balthazar, but ‘skinny angel who likes deep v-necks’ was vetoed by Mikey- with that worried look he gets any time he talks to the Winchesters.

“How are you feeling, Gabriel?”

“Far more amused than I’ve been since Mikey dragged me off to war.”

Cassie accepts that which is what he always liked about Cassie. 

“Deanna looks well,” Cassie muses, then flushes bright red when Gabriel gives him a knowing look. “And Samantha, as well,” he finishes in a hurry. 

“I saw her, yes,” he offers up, wandering under a tree to avoid giving Cassie more than a sideways glance. He’s got a sneaking suspicions where this is going, Cassie’s rather muddled attempt at human communication, and he doesn’t want to have to play Big Brother and go threaten Deanna for Cassie’s chastity. 

Well, he lies. He’d love to threaten Deanna for Cassie’s chastity, he thinks it would be absolutely hilarious, but Mikey and Lucy would insist on helping. Lucy would make it way too serious and actually scare the living shit out of Deanna, probably ending up trapped in a circle of holy fire when he gets too irritating. Mikey, on the other hand, would be far too serious in the other way and just make it boring.

Somehow, he doesn’t think Cassie would appreciate it.

“We’ve been away for so long. What do you think of her, Gabriel?”

Gabriel pinches himself to make sure he’s not dreaming or something because this would be like the perfect just desserts for some illiterate degenerate who does something to offend him about the classics, except he’s living it out and he has a deep appreciation for the classics. He helped to create several of them with the whole being one of the few angels who actually spends most of his time here on Earth.

“Too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. The only commendation I can afford her is that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.” He pauses long enough to watch Cassie’s face fall. “I killed her a couple hundred times, Cassie. Deanna’s not my biggest fan.”

Cassie sighs in relief. “How do you like her, though?”

“You planning to buy her, kiddo?”

“That would be some form of slavery and I am led to believe it is currently frowned upon in society.”

Gabriel leans against his tree, staring up at the leaves above them. “You’re no fun, Cassie.”

“I…” Cassie turns away, his wings appearing again to curl around his shoulders and block out Gabriel’s view of his face. “Imaywanttobondwithher.”

“Slower, Cassie, you tend to blow windows out if you try to speak Enochian that fast.”

“I believe I find myself in the position of wanting to bond with Deanna Winchester.” Cassie panics. “Don’t tell Michael!”

“Was it that hard to say?” 

Cassie’s wings flutter and what Gabriel can see of his neck turns a blotchy blushed red. They sit in silence for a moment while Gabriel tries to figure out what the hell to say to be all big brother-y and stuff. He doesn’t have any practice at this- he’s got armies of siblings and assorted nieces and nephews but he bailed ship when there weren’t exactly a lot of them. Mikey and Lucy and Rafy did most of the work, anyways, though Mikey spent a ton of time trying to undo Lucy’s lessons. 

_Michael?!?_

_Gabriel,_ Michael replies, directing his reply to him and him alone. Bennies of being an archangel, really. They learned how to block everyone else out of their conversations because of eavesdropping fledglings like Zachariah, who really should have been smothered in his cradle or something because he takes all of Mikey’s irritating parts and makes them even more irritating.

_I need help, Mikey. I don’t know how to be a big brother._

Michael lands with a flutter of wings, taking in Gabriel’s discomfort and Cassie’s embarrassment and heaving a sigh. 

“What keeps you?”

“Can’t tell you, Cassie’s being fussy.”

Michael actually rolls his eyes. Didn’t know he could, you know, do that with that stick up his ass since the moment of Creation. “Gabriel, I compel you as your elder and upon your allegiance to Father.”

Gabriel shrugs at Cassie. “Sorry, kiddo, but big brother’s command trumps promises. Cassie wants to further our species.”

“Very well,” Michael agrees. “With whom, Castiel?”

Cassie blushes darker and tucks into a ball like a fledgling who thinks that just because the can’t see outside of their wings, they’re now invisible. Michael gives Cassie’s back a disapproving look- and Mikey’s official title ought to be ‘Prince of Heaven and Disapproving Looks’, he’s had more practice than anyone else in Heaven or Earth- and then turns back to Gabriel.

“He wants to bond with Deanna, the short Winchester.”

“Yes, I know who my True Vessel is, thank you Gabriel.”

“Wow, sarcasm. You really are learning from your time on Earth, brother.”

“My apologies, Michael,” Cassie uncurls from his ball of feathers to apologize, face to the sky leaving his throat bared in submission. After how much time Gabriel’s spent here, it looks so incredibly animalistic to do so, but what it is is primal. Sounds like the same, if you’re a human, but angels predate everything but Daddy’s little accidental Leviathans that he locked in a pocket dimension before Creation. Primal comes from them.

Not sure why Daddy didn’t destroy those, but to be fair he was a little distracted with creating the magnificence that is Gabriel himself at that time.

“You wish to bond with my True Vessel.”

“With Deanna Winchester, yes. We shared a profound bond before I knew she was the Michael Sword. I will not infringe, Michael.” Cassie ducks his head. “I just wished to speak to someone about her.”

Okay, so maybe calling Mikey to help him be brotherly wasn’t exactly his best idea, not with the whole possessive archangel and his True Vessel thingy. Not exactly a limitation he and Rafy are bound by, but then again they weren’t foretold to start the Apocalypse.

Michael watches Cassie for a long moment- Gabriel’s not sure how long, time is relative to beings that predate time and he has a large lollipop to work on, one of those big pinwheel spiral ones in rainbow colors. Cassie tips his head back in submission again, his Grace pulsing alongside his vessel’s blood in his throat, twin rivers of life and Life.

Michael places a hand under Cassie’s chin, raising him up to full height again. “I will kill any who dare to hurt Deanna Winchester.”

“I would, too,” Cassie answers, voice steady. 

“And do you love her, Castiel?”

“I do.”

Michael releases Cassie only to pull him into a tight hug, trapping his wings against his back and wrapping his own around Cassie. Gabriel looks away, vaguely uncomfortable. He was close to Mikey and Rafy once, closer still to Lucy, before everything went to hell. 

“Gabriel,” he commands, still holding Cassie like a fledgling after their first flight. “Tell Robert Singer than we shall attend them at supper but that they need make no preparations.”

“As you desire, brother.” He starts walking instead of zapping himself there. It took him centuries to appreciate the small things, but he enjoys walking sometimes. Besides, he wants to see what Michael will say and it’s a little easier to eavesdrop this way than trying to do some fancy Grace-work without attracting Michael’s notice.

“Deanna Winchester, the Michael Sword and the heir to Messina, huntress beyond compare and beloved of an angel. I will entreat with Robert Singer on your behalf.” Michael speaks as softly as Gabriel’s heard since, well, since Creation made them all very busy. “She shall be yours to bond, Castiel. A worthy mate, despite her humanity.”

Lucky Cassie. Gabriel flies the rest of the way, trying not to miss the touch of his elder brothers’ wings wrapped around him, back before he betrayed them both by running away. If Lucy gives him an odd look as he walks through the living room, he pretends to be absorbed in his candy instead. 

It doesn’t help.

 


	2. Act I, Scene II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys- so as far as chapter breaks go, I'm following the actual breaks in the play, so this one is a short one.

It’s a little less of a tactical retreat and more of hiding from the damn angels when Bobby retreats to his study in the first place. Michael vanished to go somewhere and Cas never came in, but getting the rest of them settled was ridiculous. Gabriel’s doing party prep for a party nobody else planned on, hanging multicolored streamers and buckets of glitter floating over every door and water balloons full of diluted holy oil to go play torch his own damn brothers because nothing says family bonding after wartime like water balloons that are literally on fire.

Rufus comes to hide with him because they’re not idjits, much as Ellen tries to tell them otherwise. Deanna and Samantha made themselves scarce a while back. At a guess, D’s probably working on one of the cars and Sammy’d be in a corner of the library hoping that if she picks up a boring enough book, nobody will bother her. By the smell, Jo’s making even more cookies. Two weeks before high school graduation, Jo had them drowning in cookies while she and Deanna studied until Ellen made them go to sleep. 

As stress responses go, Bobby likes sixteen dozen cookies better than Deanna taking a crowbar to one of the beater cars out back. Besides, at least this time they can feed all the extras to the Trickster.

“Bobby Singer, I step out for _two hours_ to pick up some groceries and come back to a damn angel in my kitchen watching Jo make cookies. You care to explain?” Ellen comes storming in with all the fury of… Ellen Harvelle. There ain’t no other description for the boss lady.

Bobby groans, getting up to refill his glass and a little extra. This morning, his biggest problem was dispatching the right hunters to take care of a werewolf pack in northern Minnesota. This evening, it’s a damn flock of angels taking over his house despite them being about three seconds away from, well, their home. Up in the sky. The one they can fly to instead of wandering around and poking at his TV and making Rufus’ poison gardens grow like the damn weeds they are for absolutely no reason at all. 

For that matter, what kind of idjit is he for letting Rufus grow a garden entirely of poisons around the girls? And why hasn’t Ellen gotten around to putting her foot down on that one yet?

Apart from the nagging threat of the Apocalypse, that is, but Deanna and Sammy always seem to stumble into the damnedest disasters despite all of their collective best efforts. Really, how many parents can say they’ve dealt with their eldest daughter getting dragged to hell to save the younger one’s life and actually mean it literally?

“When the archangels come knocking, you aren’t exactly in a position to turn them away, and three of them showed up.” Not the three he would have picked. Raphael’s dropped by to debrief their newest assigned healers various times and he’s at least tolerable in a serious and unfunny way. Gabriel and Lucifer just want to make Bobby’s life as difficult as possible.

“We don’t know, Ellen,” Rufus tries to moderate. “They’ll get bored eventually, but ’til then, we’ve got a houseful. At least they don’t eat.”

“Except for the damn Trickster.”

“Bobby, he makes his own candy. That don’t count.”

“He leaves the wrappers all over the place,” Bobby grumbles. “They’ve only been here an hour and the coffee table’s got more chocolate on it than after the girls’ first Halloween.” It may be fondly remembered by his girls, but they were at school the next day when he was dealing with gummy bears melted into his wards and pixy sticks in the rug and chocolate damn everywhere. Still, little Sammy made a cute poltergeist and they soaked Nerf darts in saltwater for Deanna’s gun. He keeps the pictures hidden inside the lining of his hunting journal with all the others Sammy and Deanna want destroyed, though Rufus has copies of most of them.

“I got more news,” Rufus interrupts before they devolve into an argument about scrubbing chocolate versus booze out of the furniture. “I think Michael wants Deanna.”

“The girls said they were done with the whole True Vessel thing,” Ellen asks, perching on Bobby’s desk the way she never lets any of the girls sit on her furniture. Rufus shuts the door. They’ve heard enough arguments to last a lifetime between Ellen and the girls about her being the exception to her own rules and somehow, none of them have gotten any less headstrong with age.

Rufus and Bobby know better than to mention the hypocrisy. He likes his head right where it is, thank you very much.

“Not like that,” Rufus says, taking his own bottle off the top shelf where nobody else gets into it, though that has more to do with Rufus killing them for it than the shelf. “Like magic angel wedding type of want. Says he’s going to come talk to you about it- with the angel sense for damn drama, I’m betting on the party the Trickster’s throwing tonight.”

“Better warn Deanna in case she needs to go off the damn res.” Bobby glares at his glass, draining it. “Rufus, I’ll give you the pick. Trickster wrangling or Devil wrangling?”

“Devil, anyday.”

“Alright. I got the Trickster, then. Ellen, you on Michael duty then?”

Ellen hops off his desk. “He’s a grown-up angel, he can take care of himself. I’m going to go corral the girls.”

 


	3. Act I, Scene III

She is Lucifer’s most loyal, now that that bitch Ruby and Azazel are dead.

Azazel, she misses. He really had something special, apart from the almost accidentally killing the Boy King part. Still, for how little Lucifer gave them to work with, Azazel’s plan was beautiful. Create all the special children, all the little decoys with their powers and that little dose of instability that makes it all so much more interesting and then make them all fight to the death for the honor of breaking the seals. 

Sure, Samantha was the favorite, but it’s a good thing for Azazel that the Winchesters shot him in the heart when they did. Lucifer does not forgive and he does not forget and Azazel’s schemes hurt his True Vessel, killed Hell’s Boy King. Lucifer would have made mincemeat out of him a thousand times over for hurting her. 

And Ruby. Clever bitch, Meg’ll admit that, but Lucifer would have shredded her all the same for her betrayal of Samantha. Meg did her research, back when she was Azazel’s right hand demon, read the Heavenly lore all the stupid demons think they’re too bad for. Know your enemy and all that shit, right?

Angels can burn them from the inside out, trap them inside their vessels and kill them. They burn away every last bit of demon smoke, ripping them particle from particle and ending their existence so completely that no form of black magic can resuscitate them. 

So yeah. Know thine enemy.

And remember that the King is one of them. An exiled one, one intent on destroying all his former brothers create, but still an angel. 

Meg watches Lucifer drift through the room with the lethargic grace of a being who has always had all of eternity, moving like forcing his way through a sea of molasses. The air behind him stirs with wings she can’t see, eddies of magic swirling in his wake.

“He thinks me tame,” Lucifer muses. “I have never been able to hide what I am, and in this I will continue. I am no angel, taking orders from my brother in Father’s absence.”

His power snaps against the dimensions and Meg covers her eyes, barely peeking through her fingers as skeletal wings shadow on the wall behind her King, the illusion shattering like so much ice. 

“I weep when I am sad,” he whispers, sinking down on to the nearest couch. “I do not smile when my brother speaks, nor do I wait because he tells me to. I eat and I sleep if I feel the need and I laugh when I feel joy.”

“I know, my King,” Meg tells him, keeping her distance. Angels are frightening business, especially for a demon, and she’ll leave the whole getting close to Lucifer bit to Gadreel when he’s like this. It won’t take him much effort to kill Gadreel, but it will take more than it would to end her sorry life and she’s rather fond of surviving. 

“Michael is a fool to think I have been tamed.”

“It would be wiser to let him keep believing that for now, to restart the War on Heaven when you are ready.”

Lucifer snarls, the air crackling around him and shards of ice dropping out of the air.

“The humans had one thing right. Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Meg smiles. “I think you might like to hear what Gadreel has to say, Prince of Hell.”

Lucifer looks out the window and she can almost hear the ringing screech of angelic speech as he summons Gadreel to their side. The angel appears seconds later, cookie in each hand and his stern and serious face on. It’s a weird juxtaposition. 

She liberates him of the cookies to fix it.

“News, Gadreel. You walk freely among them, wearing another’s face.”

“Michael intends to offer the Michael Sword to bond.” 

Meg rolls her eyes at the rhythmic cadence of Gadreel’s words as he slips out of Ezekiel’s persona. He’s so pretentious.

“Why do I care? The Michael Sword is his. Were he to offer the Boy King, I would have grounds to object.”

“Deanna is to be Castiel’s.”

“The upstart seraph. Michael has lost his mind.”

“The Archangel shall woo his Sword for Castiel tonight.”

Lucifer smiles, baring too many teeth. “We have an Archangel to spite.”

Meg finds herself a nice little corner to sit in. She’s no idiot and a demon in the same room as the Serpent and the Archangel is not a demon who will live long. Time and place. She can be quiet, wait for a time when they’re much less likely to get all accidentally smite-y despite being on the same side. 

Poor little angel. She could have had so much fun with a little naive angel, but with Lucifer out for blood? He’s a goner. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Act I


	4. Act II, Scene I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Act II, Scene I, also known as I forgot how weirdly the acts are actually broken up so here's another lengthy chapter. Finally.

“So, here’s the question.”

Bobby drags them all off into the kitchen, the only place free of angels now that Jo stopped making cookies. Turns out angel mojo is absolute shit at washing dishes so they all made themselves scarce the moment there was work to be done, Gabriel in the lead. 

Bobby and Rufus watch from opposite sides of the room, keeping an eye on the open doors for wandering angels while she washes and Deanna dries. Jo’s scrubbing her cookie sheets clean and finding somewhere to put them all for the time until one of the angels eats them all. She insists on saying ‘one of the angels’ like they don’t know exactly which one it’s going to be.

“I thought dinner went well,” Deanna offers, accepting a plate from Sam. 

Sam rolls her eyes, drying the plate and putting it on the stack to go in the cupboard above Jo. Of course Deanna thought dinner went well- she was sitting between Jo and Cas and across from Rufus, who can be a little intense sometimes but is generally pretty easygoing. Jo’s been Deanna’s best friend practically since Bobby took them in and Sam’s not an idiot, she sees how Deanna looks at Cas. She just also happens to see how Cas looks when Deanna can’t see, sort of like someone’s ripping his feathers out one by one when she talks to someone else.

Sam, on the other hand, was stuck between Gabriel and Balthazar sniping at each other and Michael trying halfheartedly to get them to behave. 

“I mean does anyone know where the Devil is,” Bobby adds crossly, giving the back of Deanna’s head his best why-aren’t-you-readying-my-mind look. 

Nobody else looks like they’re going to reply, so looks like it’s up to her. “Here. As in Messina, not the kitchen, clearly.”

“He wasn’t at dinner, idjit, and I’m not too fond of Satan himself wandering my home freely.”

“The better for all of us. It was awkward enough as is, Bobby. Let’s not tempt fate.”

“Sammy’s right. We’re better off without the Devil.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Rufus mutters.

From outside, something explodes. 

Gabriel cheers. 

“That’ll be our cue,” Sam offers helpfully, drying the last plate and her hands. “It’ll be fun. I mean, how horrific can a costume party planned by an archangel be?”

Bobby just gives her the look.

“Alright, so it could be a nightmare, but a little blood and a flat surface and we can send them all packing so… advantage Team Hunters?”

“Yeah, banish three archangels and see how fast they turn you into Hannibal Lecter’s baby food,” Deanna quips. “Be careful, Sammy.”

“I always am,” she promises, plucking her mask off the kitchen table and heading for the garden. 

 

***

 

“My lady, will you take a moment and walk with me?”

Deanna glances up at the angel, examining him for a moment even though she knows damn well that she’ll only be able to recognize Cas. She doesn’t know the other angels well enough- half of them have only passed through, taken a moment by orders of the archangels to beef up Messina’s wards, and the archangels changed their faces completely. 

Gabriel says it makes the masquerade a lot more fun. At least she thinks it was Gabriel, going by the candy cane in the middle of summer. 

Well, at least there’s only a one-in-a-whole-bunch chance that this is the Devil. 

“Fine, but watch the hands. I’ve got an angel blade on me and I can scream.”

The angel offers her an arm- not that she’s surprised, they’re nothing if not archaic. Dinner was a mess of angels pulling out chairs for her and Jo and Sammy and even Ellen and pushing their chairs in a little too hard- Deanna’s sure she’s going to have a bruise from the edge of the table, but at least there’s over half a dozen angels who could heal it. 

They walk through the gardens, carefully avoiding the roses which at least tips her off to it not being Lucifer. Which is a good thing. A very good thing. Still doesn’t mean she won’t shank an angel if they get handsy, but at least she’s not walking away from her family with the biggest bad of them all. 

“Okay, we’re walking. Walk with me generally means come talk to me so… talk?”

The angel gives her the head tilt confused look that must be genetically coded or some shit because they all do it. 

“Nothing? I’m walking away.”

“May I walk away with you?”

“Maybe. If you stop being weird.”

“I endeavor to do my finest work, my lady.”

They walk a little further, Deanna minding her skirt because she likes this dress and never gets a good excuse to wear it. If it weren’t for the houseful of angels, Bobby would have taken one look and said “Not on my little girl”. Deanna learns from experience. 

“Is this some weird angel flirtation? Because if it is, I really hope it sounds better in Enochian.”

“Speak low, if you speak love.” The angel frowns. “Gabriel told me to say that. It does not make any more sense now than it did in Enochian.”

Deanna sighs, pulling the angel over to a bench. “Cut the vague mystic bullshit and we can talk.”

 

***

 

“You,” the angel tells her, “are the most intriguing human here who does not carry a risk of a smiting for talking to you.”

Jo crosses her arms, leaning against the buffet table. “And I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“Oh, play along. Our party planner is on a Shakespeare kick thanks to Samantha, so if I remember right, this is where you tell me all of your not-terrible terrible qualities.” The angel sighs, picking up a mini hot dog wrapped in a biscuit and turning it over in his fingers. “Better than Titanic. That’s something, at least.”

Jo shrugs, taking one of the mini hot dogs for herself. It’s good, but too… perfect. Needs the little burned bits and the sticky-together bits where someone but them too close together to bake and the biscuits tried to merge and all those little things that make cooking fun. She may be the weird girl with the knife collection to most people, but Mom ran the Roadhouse for years before they started Messina with Bobby and the Winchesters. She taught Jo how to cook everything in the kitchen for those days when their short-order cooks decided a haunting in the next state over is more important than a paycheck. 

And if her opinions on mini hot dogs wrapped in biscuit dough mean she likes things that are a little bit broken and all the better for it, well, there’s a reason she and Deanna have been best friends since the second day of the ninth grade.

They got in a fight and broke each others’ noses the first day. According to Mom and Bobby, they don’t get to count the first day.

“Bad qualities, huh? I… say my prayers aloud, when I actually pray.”

He rolls his eyes. “Bothersome to humans, but it rings just as loud and clear in our heads either way.”

“I don’t like boys who can’t dance.”

“Understandable.”

Jo narrows her eyes. “Mistress of one-night stands. Don’t tell Mom.”

The angel rolls his eyes. “You’re a hunter.”

“Shut up and give me another hot dog.”

 

***

 

“What do you think you’re playing at, Rufus?”

“Rufus? I do not know who you are referring to.”

Ellen gives him the Mom Look, as the girls started calling it. “You can’t fool me, Turner.”

“Let me tell you something, Ellen,” he says, leaning towards her. “I do a good mimicry of him, huh?”

“Right. You’d do better if you weren’t the man himself.”

“Am not.”

“Are too!”

“Am not.”

 

***

 

“Are you going to tell me who told you that?”

“No, you shall pardon me,” Gabriel parrots, flouncing over to the nearest bench that didn’t exist two seconds ago and sitting down. He looks at his lap, then rearranges his limbs into a more skirt-appropriate manner. Mikey and Lucy just changed their faces for the party- because he used the sad eyes and they’ve both always been vulnerable to that from the moment of Creation onwards- but he was really feeling a lime green cocktail dress and enough mojo for him to walk in high heels without them sinking into the ground. 

Best part about being an archangel? Changing his body to fit the clothes is a literal possibility and he still gets to eat all the candy he wants.

Seriously, he should think about doing a stint as a model once Mikey’s done with his whole Holy Crusade thing. He can do his own photoshop on the spot- is he the fashion industry’s wet dream or what? Sure, there’s those little niggling voices in his head that he can’t block out: _don’t abuse the powers of Heaven, Gabriel_ and _do not display your powers recklessly, Gabriel_ and _I’m disappointed, Gabriel, you can do so much better than modeling lacy underwear, have you ever tried starting an Apocalypse?_

Stupid glitch in the system, really, that they can’t tune out those of equal or greater power on Angel Radio. 

“Nor will you not tell me who you are?”

Clever Sammy, catching on. 

“Not now.” _Ball in your court, kiddo._

“That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of _America’s Funniest Home Videos_ and not the good episodes, but the ones after it got weird- well, this was the Archangel Gabriel that said so.”

“What’s he?”

“I am sure you know him well enough.” Sammy sits on the bench next to him gingerly, making sure it’s actually solid first because yeah, Gabriel’s pulled that one before and it never ceases to be _hilarious_. 

“Not I, believe me.”

“Did he never pull a prank on you?”

“I pray you, what is he?”

“Why, he is his Father’s jape, a laugh for humanity and angelkind alike, whose only gift is in tricks and treats. None but the pagans delight in him, and the commendation is not in his delivery of just desserts but in the very action of his tricks themselves, for he both saves Asgard and destroys it and they laugh at him and tie him to a rock with his son’s intestines. I am he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.”

Gabriel’s sure he’s about to turn red with trying not to laugh and his reply is short and not creative _at all_ because it’s all he can do to not wheeze it while he just keels over and waits for Daddy to resurrect him. “When I know the archangel, I’ll tell him what you say.”

“Do, do- he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there’s a candy bar saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night.” Sammy shrugs, giving the puppy eyes of what did you expect me to do with _that_ line? 

There’s a surge of cold air and then the music, which Gabriel had as a tasteful list of the best of Britney and the Spice Girls mixed with just the right amount of Bach and Handel, switches to a choir version of Black Sabbath and really, _Lucy, you can’t fool me that easily._

_This time, perhaps._

_I worked hard on this party, Lucy, don’t ruin it to make a point to Mikey._

_Only because I love you, Gabriel._ The music shifts to a classic slow dance that Lucy clearly plucked out of somebody else’s head because Gabriel doubts they have prom in Hell, as appropriate as it would be. Lucy’d be Prom Queen every time.

_I do not understand._

“We must follow the leaders,” Sammy fills in with the final part of her line, clearly expecting that Gabriel changed the music. Gabriel offers her a hand, drawing her to her feet and releasing the bench from reality. 

“In every good thing.” He sweeps her into a dance, sending out a quiet command to his weaker brethren to join the dance and make it not awkward. Angels pop into existence, joining their mates or their friends in the dance. 

“Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.” Sammy lets him lead, but only for a sole dance before taking a turn with Balthazar and sending Jo Harvelle into his arms. 

 

***

 

“Castiel is following, my lord.”

Lucifer turns an eye to his little brother. He doesn’t see all the fuss about Castiel, in truth. He’s an angel of no particular renown except for a talent for disobeying without ending up in Hell. 

“Gabriel,” he calls out, earning a startled glance from Castiel and no response. “Gabriel, you are more in favor with Michael than I, these days. He is enamored of his Vessel, of the lady Deanna Winchester. He will listen to you, brother, dissuade him from her. She may be worthy to carry his Grace, but she is no equal for his status. He will not listen to me, Gabriel, and Raphael does not listen to my cries. I may only rely on you.”

“How…” the angel begins, clearing his throat. “How do you know the Archangel loves her?”

“I heard him swear his affection,” Lucifer whispers, glancing at the ground. 

“I have heard the same,” Gadreel swears, his tone shifting to a mimicry of poor, slain Ezekiel. “He swore he would bond with her and whisk her off to Heaven tonight.” Lucifer and Castiel both give him a bemused look. Gadreel flushes red. “In the most literal of fashions. To visit Raphael.”

“I must return,” Lucifer sighs. “Michael worries if I were to be away for too long.”

As they step away, he permits himself a private smile. Castiel looks shell-shocked, utterly heartbroken. 

Perfect.

 

***

 

“Cassie?”

“Yes,” the angel sniffles, tucked away in a back corner of the gardens, wings wrapped around him until just the edges of his telltale trenchcoat poke out. 

“Let’s go inside, Cassie.” Damn. He should have guessed that with his fun with Sammy and Michael’s matchmaking, there’d be enough _Much Ado_ floating around for even Lucy to pick up and he knows better than almost anyone that Lucy- well. He’s his brother and Gabriel loves him, but he is a great big bag of dicks.

“I don’t want to.”

“Michael’s gotten Deanna’s hand.”

“Good for Michael.”

“Michael taught you to fly, Cassie, waited at the bottom of the ledge catching you until the first time you managed to actually stay in the air.”

“You kept pushing me off the ledge.”

“Tough love, kiddo. Do you really think Michael would do that to you?”

“Go away, Gabriel.”

“Don’t poke one archangel ‘cause you’re mad at another.”

Cassie vanishes in a flutter of wings before Gabriel can command him to stay, disappearing to some other corner to hide in. Gabriel sighs. He may have set in motion a little more than he bargained on, bending reality and all. At least it’ll break the tension between Cassie and Deanna. 

“Alas, poor hurt angel! Now will he creep into sedges. But that my lady Samantha should know me and not know me! My Father’s jape? Ha! It may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; I have been hidden for so long: it is the base, though bitter disposition of Samantha that puts the universe into her person and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.”

Michael steps into the clearing, wearing an expression that vaguely resembles puzzlement if he squints. “You are reciting a monologue alone in the garden after forcing us all into your celebration. I do not understand.”

Gabriel waves him off. “It’s fun to be silly. You should try it some time.”

“I think not. Have you seen Castiel?”

“Troth, Mikey, I’ve played the part of Lady Fame.”

“I do not understand.”

“Shut up and let me finish! I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren: I told him, and I think I told him true, that you got young Deanna’s hand to offer.” Gabriel holds up a hand. “Nope, don’t go there. You may not need Deanna as your Vessel any longer and you certainly don’t want to bond with her, but I wouldn’t piss off a Winchester. She’s young compared to us.”

“I had expected to find Castiel overjoyed.”

“He told you how much he liked Deanna and he thinks you stole her.” No sense being poetic with Michael. For all his years, he’s rarely left Heaven and never caught up on human culture. He won’t appreciate it.

“I wooed her for Castiel, as I promised I would.”

“Yeah, I know. You have a terrible poker face.”

Michael puts his hand between Gabriel’s shoulder blades, in the spot between where his wings would appear, and guides him out of the garden like he’s a fledgling again. Well, like he would have if he had ever really been a fledgling. The four of them grew up entirely in that non-moment between their creation and The Creation, unlike their brothers and sisters. Anyways, more like how he did until they got busy, until Gabriel ran away. 

“Balthazar tells everyone that Samantha Winchester has a quarrel with you. She says she danced with an angel who tells her she is much wronged by you.”

“Oh, she misused me past the endurance of… of Raphael!An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her, my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me— ah, forget it. Mikey, do you know how boring it is to monologue when your audience doesn’t appreciate it? Of course you don’t.”

They rejoin the crowd back in the thick of the party, though things have settled down a little bit in his absence. Life of the party, that’s him. Probably ought to add it to his list of titles. Gabriel, Archangel of the Lord and Trickster, also known as Loki, Norse God of Mischief and Occasional Fire, Star of _Casa Erotica_ and Life of the Party.

“Any way you can send me to Heaven on a really urgent mission? Emissary to the pagans Lucy didn’t kill? Get you a burger from that nice place in Prague?”

“I require your presence here to overpower Lucifer, should he attempt to hurt the hunters. I can not overpower him quickly enough on my own.”

“In Daddy’s name, Mikey, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.” He storms off by foot for drama, winking at Sammy as he passes, and goes to see if maybe he can find those cookies Jo was making last night.

 

***

 

“You seem to have lost Gabriel’s affection, Sam Winchester.”

“Yeah,” she replies, absentmindedly watching Gabriel’s retreat. “I suppose so.”

Behind her, Cas shifts uncomfortably.

“Oh, yeah. I found Cas.” Sam steps back, pushing Cas to stumble a ew steps forwards and stand in front of Michael, still clearly sulking. She’s not sure why and when Deanna’s not around, Cas is much better at playing the silent game.

“Why are you sad, Castiel?”

“I am not sad.”

“Sick? Wounded?”

“Neither.”

“Neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well. He’s civil, Michael, and jealous.” Does Sam have to explain everything to them? 

Michael stares at Cas. Cas stares at Michael. They have one of those annoyingly silent angel conversations, both of their faces completely blank, before Cas turns to Bobby and Deanna, a sort of confused joy mixed with a tiny bit of fear breaking through his stoic mask. 

“You mean it?”

Sam isn’t sure which one of them he’s addressing, but Deanna’s too busy staring to respond, so Bobby does.

“Hurt her and I’ll be taking a holy fire Molotov on your feathered ass, and that’s after she gets there first.” Bobby claps a hand on Deanna’s shoulder, squeezing tight the way Sam remembers from all her first days of school after Bobby adopted them. It says _I’m here, I love you, all you have to do is ask._

Cas opens his mouth to speak, squeaks, and looks utterly startled at the high-pitched sound. Sam tries not to spoil the moment laughing, choosing to pull Deanna to her instead. Deanna stumbles over the uneven grass, clumsy in her distraction, and Sam gets _really_ close so even the angels can’t overhear.

“D, you know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Deanna whispers back to her. 

“I wish you could see yourself, see how long you’ve both looked at each other like that. Go kiss the angel, Deanna, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“You screwed the demon that helped send me to H-E-double hockey sticks.”

“Exactly.” Sam claps Deanna on the back. “Go climb that like a tree.”

Deanna yanks Cas to her and _takes_ the way Sam really doesn’t need to see her big sister do, hot bartenders who totally looked like Cas if he was slumming it or not, and Michael shifts them all away. 

 

***

 

“I find myself warming to Samantha now that the worry of my brother’s possession of his True Vessel is passing. She is… a pleasant-spirited human.”

“Sammy doesn’t get so down, not anymore. Me raising those kids was the best it coulda been, got them away from John before he did them any more damage. Never thought I’d say I was glad to see a man abandon his children, but they’ve always been more my girls than they were his.”

“She has no desire to settle down at all.”

“The world’s got too much to offer Sammy. She’ll backsass the world till her dying day and then you guys will have to put up with her some more. No, Deanna’s always been a little more the settling type- she got to see what home looks like before Mary died.”

Michael gives Bobby a considering look. “She would make a worthy mate for Gabriel.”

Bobby laughs, choking out his words in a wheeze while he tries to breathe. “Gabriel and Sammy? They’d drive each other mad in the first week!”

Michael stands, air crackling with power around him. “I intend to make it so, at least to distract both mine brothers.”

“What the hell, I’ll help,” Bobby says. “Probably a damn fool for agreeing, but that seems to be the day.”

_Castiel,_ Michael summons silently, the angel popping in with Deanna clinging to his shoulders and taking Father’s name in vain for Castiel dragging her along.

“I am yours to order, Michael,” Castiel answers, like a good little angel. “Within reason.”

“As for you, Deanna?”

Deanna confers with Castiel for a moment, getting caught up on the situation. “You want to hook Sammy up with Gabriel? Serve her right for teasing me about Cas.”

“In Father’s name, let it be agreed.”


	5. Act II, Scene II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one because writing Lucifer and Gadreel alone is honestly boring.

 

“So Deanna Winchester shall bond with Castiel,” Lucifer muses, pacing the room. 

“I may interrupt it, my lord, if it please you,” Gadreel replies, standing stiffly at attention in the direct center of the room.

“Tell me how. I am sick of my brother’s idealism,” he spits, “of his absolute assurance in carrying Father’s favor. What do you intend, Gadreel?”

“It is…” Gadreel hesitates. “You may not like it. It breaks the rules.”

“How?”

“Injure Samantha, my Prince, and I will possess her to save her life. Deanna will make it happen for her precious sister. Then, I shall insist on Castiel’s absence or abandon Samantha, but he cannot inform Castiel as to why.”

“Too complicated. Next plan. Joanna Harvelle, Deanna’s best friend. Seduce her in Deanna’s room and I will weave the lie to convince Castiel and my brother of her dishonesty.”

“What good will that do?”

“That, Gadreel, is for me to know. Play your part.”

“Yes, my lord.”

**Author's Note:**

> Next update is probably tomorrow (October 21) at some point.


End file.
